We aren't even a full month into 2020, and this year can already choke. Times are shaping up to be almost as bad as it was in 2016 when I was going through my Dark Ages or whatever back then, but the problems I'm facing now are on a completely different caliber of what I dealt with back then. It's like comparing apples to oranges, but in this case both the apples and oranges suck because they're poisonous and out to kill me.

What's going on, you might ask? Well...

I kinda sorta might have breast cancer at just 20 years old lmaooooo 

(Why yes, dark humor is how I'm coping with this because I am s p i r a l i n g 🥴)

I've been going to a lot of doctor appointments lately for the past few months for testing and biopsies and mammograms and all of that lame-ass jazz. I got a freaking MRI on my birthday and that sucked. Even though the biopsies came back benign, they still want me to go under the knife in the upcoming month to get a sample of my distorted tissue for further lab tests.

Just a few weeks ago, I met with my breast surgeon again to talk about the surgery and that's what really got my head messed up. The thing with this procedure is that they would have to remove a big part of my tissue which would result in a visible dimple at the top of my cleavage (you know like what shows in a bikini top), and this is when it finally hit me that oh my god this is real.

Up until recently, I've never thought that I would actually for real, for real have the possibility of having breast cancer, but now... now my optimism is near to none. Even if I do have it, I know I'll survive it and all that because I'm young and healthy and everything, but it's terrifying. This came straight out of nowhere, and now I have to deal with it. In just a few months or less, I'll have my answer of whether I have it or not.

Woo-freaking-hoo 🥳

It's extremely rare for someone beneath the age of 40 to get breast cancer, but ya girl has bad luck with her lineage!!

My maternal aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer at the young age of 31. She got genetic testing done and all the results came back negative meaning that it's not hereditary, but she's not my only family member to have gotten breast cancer before. My dad's great aunts had both died of breast cancer, but they were really old and never got their genetic tests so we don't know if theirs is genetic. Like my paternal grandmother and aunt have gotten their tests which came back negative, but I don't know ugh

Sad story, but I was actually signed up to go on this big WWII Europe trip where I'd get to travel to London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Normandy for two weeks this summer. Buuuut this is America and those appointments are expensive so funds have been tight. Not wanting to burden my parents with any more unnecessary expenses (they'd said they'd pay for fees I couldn't pay for myself since they wanted me to go since it's such a big opportunity), I withdrew from the trip. 

Oh yeah, I got hit by a car on Tuesday, too 🤩 It was my first ever accident, but thankfully there were no injuries. Still, when I got home, I cried a lot. Like a lot, a lot. All this stress is building and building and building and I need it all to go away for my sanity's sake.

It's... hard. It's hard dealing with this, all of it. I feel like a volcano building up with pressure and I'm just one step away from erupting into an emotional mess for a good old existential crisis~

Hell, I actually can't deal with it, so I've been trying to ignore it as much as possible by pouring myself into distractions. For me, the best distractions are ones that require me to think about very specific things to keep my mind busy, so I play video games. My life has been taken over by Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and I love the game for being so good at keeping my thoughts at bay.

I don't know why, but writing just hasn't been able to give me the escape I need. If I'm not writing, I tend to avoid Wattpad because I feel bad for not posting and all that. It's much easier to stay offline, you know?

I don't know if anyone remembers this, but I mentioned once upon a time that TIOG might be the last story I finish here on the site and that I was perfectly fine with that. I still am fine with that, to be honest. I'll still work on LL because I don't want to abandon it so easily, but it's at the bottom of my list of priorities right now.

Like, writing-wise, I'm actually beginning to work on transitioning TIOG into an original fiction story. Its placeholder name at the moment is Eyes of Gold. I have no plans on trying to publish it at a big house or anything, but I want to write an original fiction story and at least self-publish it through like Amazon for my family to read.

...yeah...

What a way to kick off the new year!!!!

Sorry for the darkness of all this, but I thought I'd let you guys know why I'm MIA 😬